My dear Humphreys,

In my last, by the Marquis de la Fayette, I gave you reason to believe that when I was more at leizure, you should receive a long letter from me; however agreeable this might be to my wishes, the period it is to be feared, will never arrive. I can with truth assure you, that at no period of the war have I been obliged to write half as much as I now do, from necessity. I have been enquiring for sometime past, for a person in the character of Secretary or clerk to live with me; but hitherto unsuccessfully. What with letters (often of an unmeaning nature) from foreigners. Enquiries after Dick, Tom, and Harry who may have been in some part, or at sometime, in the Continental service. Letters, or certificates of service for those who want to go out of their own State. Introductions; applications for copies of Papers; references of a thousand old matters with which I ought not to be troubled, more than the Great Mogul, but which must receive an answer of some kind, deprive me of my usual exercise; and without relief, may be injurious to me as I already begin to feel the weight, and oppression of it in my head, and am assured by the faculty, if I do not change my course, I shall certainly sink under it.